A Singapore man has received a sobering sentence for his involvement in the theft of S$365,000 (US$267,097) in cash meant for a bitcoin purchase.
As reported by The Strait Times on Friday, Jaromel Gee Ming Li, 29, was sentenced to three years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane on Thursday.
Gee pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a conspiracy to commit robbery with the aid of two other men, Mohd Abdul Rahman and Syed Mokhtar, both 39 years of age.
According to the report, Gee was engaged in bitcoin brokerage and organized transactions between parties seeking to buy and sell bitcoin.
Gee solicited Abdul Rahman to assist him with transactions that generally involved potential buyers of bitcoin for larger sums of cash, but in April 2018 they reportedly switched tactics to rob prospective buyers.
Hearing that Pang Joon Hau, a Malaysian man, had arrived in Singapore for a bitcoin purchase with the S$365,000 in cash, Gee directed Abdul Rahman and Mokhtar to locate the investor in his hotel and rob him on April 8.
Abdul Rahman and Mokhtar proceeded to physically assault Pang and another bitcoin investor Teo Chern Wei in their hotel room before running off with a backpack containing Pang’s cash.
Gee was arrested on April 18, 2018, – it is unclear how authorities discovered Gee’s involvement in the robbery.
